It is said that information is power,a lifetime asset that one can’t afford to loose.!It is therefore a parent/guardians’ responsibility to ensure that their children acquire education,however its not easy for some parents as the educational costs are not friendly to them.
Early in the morning,on a normal week day,on different streets of kibera,you will meet pupils from different schools,going different directions towards their respective schools.Those from privileged families are picked along the roads by school vans to their schools.
Kibera,which is on a 2.5 square km area,has 13 villages with a unique charm of the now 43 tribes of Kenya. At least every Kenyan tribe is represented in these community .It is small in size but big in population.The estimated population is 600,000 people,with a lot of controversy as different entities have their own figures!
The majority of the population are the young people,those who school,graduates and the unprivileged,who didn’t have an opportunity to acquire education.
One of the millennium development goals is,the universal acess to free primary education.Out of this big population,there are not more than five public schools in kibera!Most of the schools are owned by NGO’s,missionaries, private religious entities which to some are not affordable.The Government that is to take responsibility does completely the opposite.
The few schools have a big population of pupils.You are likely to find a school,with each unit consisting of (60) sixty pupils and each unit has several streams of classes,being attended to by one teacher. It’s totally unbearable and the few teachers are overworked.How can a teacher ensure that a pupil seated at the back of the class grasps everything?This has been a major challenge and its not easy to detect the weakness of each pupil and offer help for improved performance.Some pupils who can’t perform are discouraged and discontinue schooling,and since there is no money to take them back to school,they idle at home.Idleness becomes a threat to the society,as most of them indulge in terrible activities like,drug abuse,robbery and sexual offenses,which are not only risk to their lives but also to the community.
The questions always arises;
1.Are parents/guardians responsible enough?
2.What is the Government doing to empower the large number of the uneducated and the less educated youths,not only in kibera but also countrywide in response to the millennium development goal?
